


Heart of Christmas

by SilviaS7



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Briefs family shenanigans, Christmas fic, Family, Gen, Vegeta's famous character development, We're Just Saiyan Secret Santa 2014
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 11:19:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3118250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilviaS7/pseuds/SilviaS7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fanfic written for the We're Just Saiyan Secret Santa 2014 gift exchange.  </p><p>“He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree.”  - Roy L. Smith</p><p>For Vegeta, holidays were major annoyances at best.  But when a young Bra starts to question why her father isn't as involved as the rest of the family for some holiday festivities, the Prince of the Saiyans begins to feel a little differently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heart of Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfic assumes Christmas is a thing in the DB world. When the meat of the fic happens, Trunks is 18, Bra is 6, Bulma is 51 and Vegeta is 52 (54 if you count the two years he spent in the Room of Spirit and Time). The fic starts in early December (Trunks’s birthday is roughly in early November), and I didn’t include Thanksgiving as a holiday because this is a Christmas fic and who cares about Thanksgiving? ;D
> 
> To inspireditto, whom this fic was written for, I hope you like it!

-+-

 

“He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree.”  - Roy L. Smith

 

-+-

 

 

Bulma wasn’t sure she would be a good mother.  From the moment she discovered that she was pregnant with Trunks, that particular thought plagued her.  In between all of the physical and immediate issues that came bundled along with pregnancy, she wondered if she would ever feel like a mother.  She wasn’t particularly fond of children, and she wasn’t good at caring for other people.  Yamucha had been really ill a few times in their relationship, and it was all she could stomach to stop by his apartment and drop off something he needed.  He was the caring one in their relationship; he would have made a much better parent than her.  It was too late for those thoughts now, considering who the father was of her soon-to-be child.

 

But once Trunks was born and Bulma saw his tiny little face and hands, something changed.  Something flipped on inside of her with the speed of a lamp lighting up a room, and suddenly he was her baby and the smartest and the cutest and the best and she would do anything for him.  She was shocked how quickly her attitude had changed.  When she thought about it one evening as Trunks slept in her arms and she rocked him in a chair in the nursery, she wondered how she ever lived her life without him.  As if her life before was just some made-for-TV movie and she had seen it, but she hadn’t really lived it.  It was like a distant memory, or an interesting anecdote.  That wasn’t her life; no, she was a badass scientists with an equally badass baby.  She laughed to herself; she felt so immature, but she was sure she had never really grown up anyway.

 

Part of the joy of having Trunks was that as he grew, she could finally understand why her parents made her do all those dorky things when she was a kid.  And now she could do them to her own son.  Instead of a twisted sense of pleasure, she was truly happy to dress him up in a bunny costume because he was the cutest kid ever.  It was especially true for holidays like Christmas, with all of the goofy traditions like singing carols and stockings full of candy and baking cookies for Santa.  Vegeta was never involved, but Bulma didn’t feel like she needed him.  She had Trunks and “grandma and grandpy” to do all of these fun activities with.  It never bothered her that when they took a photo with Santa, or took a family photo outside in the snow, that Vegeta was never in the picture.  That was just who he was, and she accepted it.  Trunks seemed to understand, because he never pressed the issue either.

 

Just as Trunks was getting to the age where Bulma kissing him on the cheek would elicit an annoyed sigh an “Ew mom, that’s gross,” Bulma found herself pregnant once more.  It was certainly unexpected; Bulma was almost forty-five years old and preparing for a second child.  Luckily, her pregnancy with Bra was much easier than with Trunks, despite the higher risk due to Bulma’s age.  Bulma wondered how she could possibly love two children as much as she loved Trunks; she worried that there wasn’t enough room left in her heart for another child after twelve years with her precious baby boy.  She was shocked yet again when Bra was born, and everything fell into place like the world was dull and grey before her baby girl came along.  

 

Bra was born after the Majin Buu crisis, and Vegeta was in the delivery room this time.  Bulma watched as something shifted in his eyes when the doctor unceremoniously handed Bra to Vegeta; the poor man had no idea what he’d just done.  Vegeta, however, stared down at Bra like he had sight for the first time in his life.  Bulma knew that Vegeta had changed after he sacrificed himself to defeat Buu, but she didn’t understand the depth of that change until Bra was born.

 

It was plain to see for all that knew Vegeta that Bra held a power over him that Bulma never thought anyone could possess.  Vegeta was far more involved with Bra than Bulma expected; he would even tell her to lie back down to get up and feed Bra in the middle of the night.  And what a relief it was to Bulma; she didn’t remember being  this tired when Trunks was an infant, but she was also twelve years younger back then.  Vegeta, on the other hand, never seemed to age.  

 

So as Bra grew up, Bulma now had two children to dress in cute outfits for silly holidays.  Trunks, full of teenage angst and loathing for his mother’s ridiculous holiday “traditions” the same way Bulma was with her parents, still managed to play along much to Bulma’s delight.  Not only that, but Vegeta had deigned to honor them with his presence from time to time.  Now Bulma had photo frames with pictures of the entire family in them.  Vegeta never smiled in photos, but that was who he was, and she was content with him just being present.  

 

But one holiday that Vegeta could never seem to warm up to was Christmas.  Bulma knew the holiday had religious significance, but that meant nothing to her.  It was more about having fun with her children, and spoiling them with gifts once a year like other kids.  As Trunks grew a little older, even he started having fun with his little sister on various holidays.  It was especially apparent when Bulma let him dress her up like a zombie puppy for this year’s Halloween.  Bulma snickered at the thought; Vegeta nearly had a heart attack when he saw them before he realized it was all makeup.  Trunks had gone all out, and Bra was quite the scary looking zombie dog.  Six year old Bra didn’t care; she was happy that her big brother was happy.  

 

Something about Christmas just seemed to annoy Vegeta almost as much as mentioning Son Goku.  Bulma didn’t know what the problem was, but she didn’t particularly care.  She’d been spending the holidays with Trunks by herself for many years without Vegeta’s involvement before Bra had been born, and then more years after that.  Despite the improvement in his overall attitude and outlook on life, Vegeta wasn’t about to sit down and help them bake cookies for Santa any more than he would shake hands with Goku.

 

At least, that was all true until one winter, starting a few weeks after Trunks’s eighteenth birthday…

 

-+-

 

“The kids and I are going to the mall to get pictures taken with Santa,” Bulma announced as she hopped on one leg while sliding a red pump onto the opposite foot.  “We’ll be back in a few hours,” she added once the shoe was on her foot, walking up to Vegeta to give him a peck on the cheek.  He merely grunted in acknowledgement, and Bulma headed out of their room and downstairs to gather up her children.

 

“Oh, Bulma honey!” Bulma’s mother called out upon seeing her walk into the living room.  “Are you heading out?  Do you want me to make lunch for everyone?”

 

“No mom, that’s okay,” Bulma said, picking up a few pieces of clothing that had been left on the couch.  “I’m taking the kids to get their pictures taken with Santa,” she added with a smile.  “So we’ll eat when we get back.”

 

“Okay dear if you insist,” the Briefs matriarch replied.

 

At that moment, Trunks dashed into the living room, a little faster than a normal human which caused a bit of a whirlwind in the room.  “You mean you and Bra are getting pictures taken, because I’m not,” Trunks said to his mother with a smirk.

 

“You will be participating whether you like it or not young man,” Bulma said with a slight scowl.  She shoved the items she had picked up into her son’s arms.  “And quit leaving your dirty laundry all over the house,” she added with an annoyed visage.

 

“Yeah, ‘young man,’” Trunks echoed her words while holding the small pile of clothes.  “As in, I just turned eighteen so I’m officially an adult now and you can’t make me do anything I don’t want to do,” he added, walking toward the hall to head down to the basement where the laundry was washed and dried.

 

“Trunks Briefs,” Bulma said, her head snapping around to his.  The call of his full name made the teenager stop in his tracks and look back at his mother.  “If you want to be an adult then you can move out on your own and get a job as well as your own place to stay, with your own money ,” Bulma stated with a heavy sarcasm.

 

Trunks laughed nervously.  “Well, you can’t make me do  anything you want me to do,” he conceded.

 

Bulma smirked.  “That’s better but still not a good answer.”  Trunks shook his head at her and disappeared down the hall with the pile of laundry in his arms.

 

Just then, Bulma’s father walked in with her six year old daughter riding on his back.  “This is where the train stops young lady,” he said jovially before taking a knee to help Bra get down.

 

“Dad don’t do that, you’ll hurt your back,” Bulma chided her father as her daughter ran over to her.

 

“But it’s so much fun,” her father protested coolly.  Before he had a chance to rise, Scratch sauntered up to him and he helped his favorite cat up onto his shoulders.

 

“Mommy!” Bra exclaimed brightly with a wide smile on her face.

 

“Hi my baby,” Bulma replied before picking up her daughter to hold her.  Bra was getting a little too big and Bulma was getting a little too old for her to lift her daughter like this much longer.  “Are you ready to go see Santa?” Bulma asked her daughter excitedly.

 

“Yes!  I was really good this year so Santa will bring me lots of presents, right mommy?” Bra asked, her eyes nearly sparkling with her eagerness to please.

 

“I think so sweetie,” Bulma replied with a nod before kissing Bra on the forehead.

 

Trunks appeared back in the living room, the same way he had entered earlier.  The whirlwind caused Bra’s hair to flutter a bit, with several strands falling out of the clip holding her hair back from her face.  “Laundry is in the washer, there was some other stuff downstairs so I went ahead and started it,” he said in a rush.

 

“Trunks stop running in the house, and thank you,” Bulma quickly replied while setting Bra down.  With her daughter on the ground, Bulma had her turn around to she could fix her hair.  While adjusting her daughter’s hair, Bulma glanced at her son.  “Can you get the car started?  And make sure Bra’s booster seat is in the back?”

 

“Yeah sure,” Trunks replied, almost rolling his eyes at his mother.  He headed into the kitchen to get Bulma’s car keys out of her purse before heading to the garage.

 

“Mommy,” Bra began as her mother put the clip back in her hair and secured it into place, “is daddy going with us?”

 

“No sweetie,” Bulma replied, standing upright once more now that she was done with her task.  Bra turned to face her.  “He doesn’t like Christmas stuff.  I think he’s just jealous that Santa is faster than him,” she said with a wink.

 

“I heard that,” Vegeta barked out as he walked into the living room.

 

“Daddy!” Bra shouted before running over to her father.  He gave her a pat on the top of her head, and she smiled up at him like he was her entire world.  Bulma laughed lowly to herself; her husband had become such a softie when it came to their daughter.  She was already six and he hadn’t even taught her to fly, only how to suppress her ki after an incident when she was eighteen months old and blew up part of the nursery by accident.  After the Cell games, Vegeta was trying to teach Trunks to fight before the poor child could even walk.

 

“Car’s ready,” Trunks announced as he walked back into the living room.

 

Bulma turned to go retrieve her purse in the kitchen when her mother walked up and handed it to her.  “Oh thanks mom,” Bulma said cheerily as she shouldered her bag.

 

“Have fun everyone!” Mrs. Briefs called out, looking at Bra and waving her hand.

 

“Bye grandma, bye grandpy,” Bra replied and waved back at her grandparents.  Bulma took Bra’s hand and followed Trunks out to the garage and the car that waited.  Just before leaving the room, Bra gave one last glance to her father.  “Bye daddy,” she said softly, sad to leave without him.

 

-+-

 

After returning home from their trip to see Santa, Bulma prepared a late lunch for everyone.  After lunch, Vegeta dragged Trunks into the gravity chamber, arguing that his son was slacking in his training that he wouldn’t allow “Kakarot’s brat” to outpace her son.  Bulma spent some time with Bra before putting the child to bed, after which Bulma opened a bottle of wine and worked in her lab on a new microprocessor she was developing.  It was sad to admit, but she got her best work done on late Saturday nights with some wine in her system.

 

Sometime after midnight, Bulma finally made her way upstairs to bed.  She kept the lights off while she changed, since Vegeta was already asleep and she didn’t want to disturb him.  Bulma crawled into bed quietly, softly sliding in under the sheets.  No sooner had she settled into her spot, Vegeta’s head popped up off of his pillow.

 

“Damnit,” Bulma swore.  “I’m sorry, I thought I was quiet enough that I wouldn’t wake you,” she immediately apologized.  Vegeta had always been a light sleeper, keen to anything that would happen in or around the Capsule Corporation grounds.  Bulma once compared him to a cat, which he didn’t take so well.

 

“You didn’t wake me woman,” Vegeta said, tired but still with a tinge of frustration in his voice.  He turned onto his side so he could face his wife.

 

“Can’t sleep?” Bulma asked, setting a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to comfort him.  It certainly wouldn’t be the first time the prince had had problems sleeping.  Vegeta nodded slightly in response.  “What’s up?” Bulma asked, hoping to help her husband any way she could.

 

“This blasted holiday,” Vegeta grumbled, his eyes narrowing as his gaze moved away from Bulma’s eyes and to somewhere else in the dark of their room.

 

“Christmas?” Bulma asked, completely confounded.  “You’ve never cared about it before, why now?”  Now  this was totally out of character for Vegeta.

 

He sighed and gave her a pointed look, like he did whenever he had a difficult time saying something.  “Bra,” he said simply.  He had seen the look in her eyes when he said he wasn’t going with them.  He’d heard her sad goodbye, even if no one else did.  She had never really bothered him about his non-participation in certain family events before, and now that she did, he found it hard to eat.  Or sleep.  Or train.  Or do anything that he normally did, without thoughts of his daughter plaguing him.

 

Bulma nodded, somewhat understanding what Vegeta was referring to.  Trunks had never really questioned the distance his father maintained while growing up, though admittedly it had improved significantly after the Majin Buu incident.  Even so, he seemed to understand that Vegeta was a lost cause when it came to those types of things.  He never asked Bulma about it, even if he felt like he was missing out.  But Bra… she was a different child.  She was more outspoken than her older brother.  It was why she didn’t hesitate to ask her father if he was going with them that morning; now Bulma wondered if Bra had said anything else about it to Vegeta.

 

“She loves you,” Bulma said simply.  “She wants you to be around when we’re all doing things together as a family.  I know you Vegeta; I know you won’t do anything you don’t want to do, and that’s fine with me.”  She paused a moment, considering her next words carefully.  Not for fear of angering her husband, but rather she was afraid of hurting him.  “I think Trunks understood that growing up,” she started slowly, “but Bra is different.   You’re  different,” she stressed.

 

Bulma hesitated a moment, thinking over her words.  “Trunks is a young man now.  He doesn’t want to take his baby sister to the mall and take a photo with Santa, there are probably a hundred other things he’d rather do.  But he did it anyway, because he knows that Bra wants him there, and he wants to make her happy,” she said softly.  She shot her husband a sad smile.  “I’m not going to tell you what to do, Vegeta,” she finished, leaving off the rest of her thought.   It’s up to you to maintain your relationship with our daughter.

 

Vegeta only nodded in response.  Bulma gave him a quick kiss and rolled over to go to sleep.  Vegeta shifted, sitting up in bed against the pillows behind him.  He stared out the double doors leading to the balcony off of their room, looking at the stars, and wondered who he was.

 

-+- 

 

 

Two weeks later, the weekend before Christmas, Bulma, Trunks and Bra were wrapping gifts at the dining room table.  Bulma’s parents had taken a trip to an island off of South City, where they planned to vacation until the new year.  This wasn’t unusual; once Bulma was an adult they liked to head south during the winter for at least a week or two and get away from the cold and snow.  Bulma had already wrapped her children’s gifts, and so the three of them were wrapping gifts for Bulma’s parents as well as their ‘extended family’ - the Son family, Krillin’s family, and others.

 

“Hey sis, pass me the tape,” Trunks said while glancing at Bra.  He was holding the wrapping paper closed on one end of his box, having run out of tape in the middle of wrapping.  Bra looked at her brother before picking up the tape and throwing it to him.  She put a little too much force behind the throw, and Trunks had to drop the box and almost leap out of his seat to snatch the tape out of the air.  “Whoa!” he exclaimed as he caught it.  “Calm down there sis,” he said with a nervous laugh.

 

“Honey don’t throw so hard,” Bulma said to Bra.  The girl just looked at her mother blankly for a moment before going back to work attempting to wrap her present for Marron.

 

Bulma sighed and turned to her son.  “Every time your father teaches her how to keep her power under control, she has a growth spurt and seems to completely forget everything he taught her,” she said in exasperation.

 

“I’ll try working with her,” Trunks replied, giving a quick glance to his mother before returning back to work on wrapping his gift for Goten.  He’d picked out a set of high end headphones, as Goten had recently trashed his cheap pair of earbuds.  It was the kind of thing that Goten wanted but would never think to buy for himself, even if he had the money.  

 

Just then, Vegeta walked into the kitchen.  Since the dining room was completely open to the kitchen, Bra caught sight of her father reaching into the fridge.  “Daddy!” she shouted to him.  “Don’t you have presents to wrap?” she asked, nearly vibrating in her chair with excitement.

 

Bulma shot Trunks a concerned glance, which her son only answered with a shrug.  They both knew the answer to Bra’s question, the real question was how Vegeta was going to answer it.  Vegeta hesitated a moment, his brows drawing together on his sweat-drenched forehead.  He’d only stepped out of the gravity room to rehydrate; he didn’t have any plans on tackling this issue at the moment.  He’d been able to push the incident from two weeks ago to the back of his mind, but now here it was again.

 

“No,” Vegeta said flatly, reaching up for the towel hanging around his neck to wipe some of the sweat from his face.  “I don’t,” he added with a sense of finality.

 

“Oh,” Bra said, her face falling.  “Okay,” she said before turning away from him and back to the box she had been trying to wrap for forty minutes.

 

Trunks could feel his father’s ki flicker in a strange way.  He didn’t know what it meant, but it felt like his father was upset.  Despite that, Vegeta walked away as if nothing bothered him.  Trunks knew better, but now wasn’t exactly the moment to chase after his dad.  Maybe later, when they were done and it wouldn’t be obvious to his sister.  She was kind of a brat sometimes and it wasn’t like a high school senior wanted to hang out with his first grade sister, but he loved her and wanted to protect.  Even if protecting her meant sparing her feelings from their father’s coldness.

 

“Mommy do you think Marron will like the doll I got for her?” Bra suddenly asked.

 

“I think she’ll love it,” Bulma replied with a smile.  “Come over here and let me help you with that,” she added and Bra quickly did as instructed, carrying over the box with the crumpled wrapping paper taped to one side.  “I think we should start over so the wrapping paper is all nice and clean for Marron, don’t you think?”  Bra nodded happily and Bulma began removing what her daughter had started.

 

Trunks finished wrapping up his portion of the gifts, and left his mother and sister to finish the last few.  He left the dining room and headed for the backyard, where the gravity room sat.  As Trunks got closer, he realized that his father’s ki wasn’t as far away as it should have been, and he wasn’t expending any energy.  Upon walking outside, Trunks found his father standing just outside the house, the towel still hanging around his neck.

 

Trunks closed the door behind him before stepping over to stand to his father’s left.  “Kinda cold out to stand out here with no shirt on,” Trunks joked.  Vegeta was only wearing shorts and sneakers, and snow slowly fell while a slight breeze blew occasionally.  It was enough to chill Trunks, and he was wearing a sweatshirt with thick pants.

 

Vegeta merely eyed his son warily from the corner of his eyes.  “What do you want, brat?” he demanded tersely.  When Vegeta was annoyed with his son, he would often address him as ‘brat.’  When he was younger, it used to annoy Trunks, but now it just slid off of his back like nothing.

 

“You’re the one who’s upset,” Trunks countered with a knowing gaze.  “Call me a brat all you want but I know you well enough to sense when you’re uneasy.”  Trunks hesitated a moment before hazarding a guess as to why his father was on edge.  “It’s about Bra, right?”

 

Vegeta’s gaze returned to staring straight ahead at the gravity room.  “This insipid holiday, I don’t understand it,” Vegeta began.  Trunks was a bit surprised that his father would open up to him, but stayed silent to see if he would continue.  “Some fat man wears a ridiculous red suit and everyone wants to see him, people sing about things that make no sense, they buy cheap gifts to give to one another after wrapping them in paper for no discernible reason,” Vegeta growled.  “It’s all so completely  stupid ,” he nearly spat.

 

Despite his father’s words, Trunks could hear in Vegeta’s tone that he wasn’t angry as much as he was frustrated.  Frustrated that Bra wanted him to participate in this  ‘insipid holiday,’ and that he was letting her down.  Just a few years ago, Trunks was insanely jealous of the attention that Vegeta gave to Bra--and how it wasn’t  negative  attention like he’d received as a child.  The eldest Briefs child had moved past that, and could see the situation for what it was.  Vegeta did a lot of things for Bra, but part of his pride wouldn’t let him participate in something that he deemed to be so beneath him.  For someone who liked to hide his emotions behind a lot of bravado, Vegeta was easy to read in Trunks’s opinion.

 

“Dad, it’s not about the damn presents under the tree,” Trunks said bluntly.  “The gifts are a show of kindness to the people you love and care about, that’s all,” he added.

 

“Oh so to show someone you care, you buy them some worthless trinket?” Vegeta bit back, turning toward his son now.  “Your mother could buy every company in that blasted mall, and then some.  Does it look like she cares when she buys these pieces of garbage?” he asked bitterly.

 

“Oh  Dende  dad,” Trunks sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes.  “You just don’t get it,” he muttered more to himself than his father.  Trunks opened his eyes and looked at Vegeta once more.  “It’s not about the money.”  Trunks thought for a moment before an example came to mind.  “Look, mom commissioned a seamstress to make a dress for Pan to give to Chichi, right?  But it’s not about the dress itself.  The dress is a traditional garment worn in Chichi’s village.  So it’s more about the thought behind the gift, that shows that mom knows Chichi and cares about what  she cares about,” Trunks finished.  “Does that make sense?”

 

Vegeta made a noncommittal noise that indicated he had at least heard what his son had said.  Whether he understood it or not, Trunks didn’t know.  “You don’t have to like all of this Christmas crap,” Trunks added, “but you could pretend to like it for Bra.  It’s what a lot of parents do.”  Trunks stood next to his father while awkwardly shifting on his feet.  Realizing he had nothing else to say, Trunks turned and walked back into the house, leaving his father to his thoughts in the snow.

 

-+-

 

Several days later on Christmas morning, Bulma had to wake up Bra.  Trunks had the same problem when he was younger; he was so anxious to open gifts that he couldn’t fall asleep, until he did and then slept in late.  Once Bra made it downstairs into the large family room where the Christmas tree sat in one corner, her eyes lit up and she skipped over to the tree.  The presents under the tree had nearly doubled overnight with Santa’s ‘visit’ to drop off gifts for Bra and Trunks.  

 

Trunks was already awake, and sitting on one of the couches in the room, drinking a glass of orange juice.  The best part of Christmas with the kids, in Bulma’s opinion, was everyone opening their presents in their pajamas and then having a family breakfast together in those same pajamas.  It was a moment that both she and her children could forget about being ‘the Briefs’ and just be another normal family.  Well, as normal a family they could be considering the kids’ genetics.

 

Trunks passed out the presents to everyone, in their areas, with most items going to him and Bra.  Bulma wasn’t left out, and had a significant pile of gifts at her feet that her children had picked out.  Trunks had wrapped them so she wouldn’t know what they were.  As Trunks continued passing out gifts, Bulma noticed several that she didn’t recognize, as the wrapping paper was different.  She picked one up at her feet to examine it a little closer.  It had her name on it, but the handwriting was odd.  She felt like she should recognize it, but she didn’t.  Not only that, but there was no “from” on the package.

 

“Daddy!”

 

Bra’s shout brought Bulma out of her thoughts.  She looked up to the doorway to see her husband standing there.  She was surprised to see Vegeta and her face plainly showed it; he had never joined them on Christmas morning.  It wasn’t his thing.  It was odd to see him standing there, but even more vexing was the  smirk  on his face.  As Bulma looked at him, Vegeta caught her gaze briefly.  The gears in her head turned, until her eyes widened as she thought she had figured out what was happening.   No, Bulma thought in disbelief.  It couldn’t have been him… could it?

 

Bra had already started tearing into her gifts, unable to hold back once Trunks had finished passing out the presents under the tree.  One of the first she opened was one of the presents that Bulma didn’t recognize.  Once she tore it open and saw what the item was, her smile grew wide across her face.  “It’s Maria the kitty!” Bra exclaimed excitedly, holding up the box to show everyone the stuffed white cat toy in the box. 

 

Turning the box around to look at it again, Bra’s eyes almost sparkled with happiness.  She looked up straight at Vegeta and said “Thank you daddy!”

 

Bulma watched as Vegeta’s smirk slowly shifted into a more tender smile, which wasn’t unusual when it came to Bra.  It confirmed what Bulma had thought was impossible; Vegeta had gone and purchased them Christmas presents.  And wrapped them, and snuck them under the tree when Bulma wasn’t looking.  To say the Briefs heiress was floored would be an understatement of astounding proportions.  

 

“Have a seat dad,” Trunks said with a smile, dragging Bulma out of her stunned silence.  She watched as Vegeta walked into the room and had a seat on the sofa across from his son and next to his wife.

 

Vegeta gave Bulma a sly smile that she didn’t miss, even if her children did.  Bulma smiled, trying to choke back tears.  She reached over to Vegeta and put her hand on top of his and squeezed while gazing into his eyes.  He nodded so slightly it would have been missed by anyone who wasn’t watching him closely.  Vegeta then turned to watch his children unwrap their gifts, and Bra began showing the next thing she had ripped open to her father.

 

Bulma’s heart swelled.  Even if Vegeta still hated Christmas, maybe he could finally play along for their children, who she knew without a doubt that he did love.

 

 

-+-

 

 

Thanks for reading!  I would love to hear your thoughts, so please leave a review.

 

-Silvia


End file.
